Evil rests in all of us, whether it’s buried deep, or lay on the surface. Both ‘Mean Girls” by Tina Fey, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding explore into the human mind to find out more about this “evil”, and, if the good in us will prevail over the evil. Both of these stories show the light and dark side in all of us, but, while “Mean Girls’ is more light-hearted, Lord of the Flies is more dark and heavy. So, can these two be compared? If you look deep into their core meaning, you will find that, in many ways, they are very alike. But, in just as many ways, they are different.
Lord of the Flies is a story about a group of boys on a stranded island with no adults. What seems like paradise at first, rapidly spirals out of control and almost becomes hell itself. All of the boys in this book are British and between the ages of four and twelve. This story takes place in the 1950’s during World War II. These boys experience true “evil” and result to cutting off each other’s heads and putting them on sticks. Adults play no role in this novel, because all of them died, so there is no one to steer these boys in the right direction when things start drifting off course. To go along with the misery that is undergone in this book, the ending is also rather unhappy (evil wins).
On the other hand “Mean Girls” is a much more light-hearted chick flick. This story takes place in modern times (2004 to be exact) in high school. The characters in this book are mainly girls between the ages of 16 and 18, and they are all American. Unlike Lord of the Flies, there are adult present in this story, although they only play a small role. Even though the girls don’t kill each other, there is a lot of brutal verbal and emotional attacks on one another, and some physical fighting. Unlike Lord of the Flies, these girls don’t experience true evil. Even if you tried to make the most evil character in the movie, Regina, physically kill someone, she probably would rather just ruin their social life. Rather than having a sad ending, like Lord of the Flies, “Mean Girls” has a happy ending in which, “girl world is finally at peace”. But there is also many similarities between this film and novel. Both stories have a villain, for Lord of the Flies, Jack, and for “Mean girls”, Regina. Both have a symbol that represents evil, in Lord of the Flies the actual lord of the flies (devil), which was a severed pig’s head on a stick. In “Mean girls” the burn book, which is a scrapbook filled with bad things about every girl in the school. Both deal with fear, betrayal, ignorance, and the battle between good and evil. But, most importantly, both are a microcosm of the wider world.
In the end, Lord of the Flies and “Mean Girls” are both very alike, and very different. They are both works of art, and they both express a very real imperfection that we all maintain. Even though it may be hard to believe that a chick flick about high school girls, and a heavy, hardcore novel about little boys killing each other, can be similar in any way, they both represent the same general thing, which is how evil works in the human race, and how it exists in all of us, but that doesn’t mean that we have to let it control us.
Lord of the Flies is a story about a group of boys on a stranded island with no adults. What seems like paradise at first, rapidly spirals out of control and almost becomes hell itself. All of the boys in this book are British and between the ages of four and twelve. This story takes place in the 1950’s during World War II. These boys experience true “evil” and result to cutting off each other’s heads and putting them on sticks. Adults play no role in this novel, because all of them died, so there is no one to steer these boys in the right direction when things start drifting off course. To go along with the misery that is undergone in this book, the ending is also rather unhappy (evil wins).
On the other hand “Mean Girls” is a much more light-hearted chick flick. This story takes place in modern times (2004 to be exact) in high school. The characters in this book are mainly girls between the ages of 16 and 18, and they are all American. Unlike Lord of the Flies, there are adult present in this story, although they only play a small role. Even though the girls don’t kill each other, there is a lot of brutal verbal and emotional attacks on one another, and some physical fighting. Unlike Lord of the Flies, these girls don’t experience true evil. Even if you tried to make the most evil character in the movie, Regina, physically kill someone, she probably would rather just ruin their social life. Rather than having a sad ending, like Lord of the Flies, “Mean Girls” has a happy ending in which, “girl world is finally at peace”.
But there is also many similarities between this film and novel. Both stories have a villain, for Lord of the Flies, Jack, and for “Mean girls”, Regina. Both have a symbol that represents evil, in Lord of the Flies the actual lord of the flies (devil), which was a severed pig’s head on a stick. In “Mean girls” the burn book, which is a scrapbook filled with bad things about every girl in the school. Both deal with fear, betrayal, ignorance, and the battle between good and evil. But, most importantly, both are a microcosm of the wider world.
In the end, Lord of the Flies and “Mean Girls” are both very alike, and very different. They are both works of art, and they both express a very real imperfection that we all maintain. Even though it may be hard to believe that a chick flick about high school girls, and a heavy, hardcore novel about little boys killing each other, can be similar in any way, they both represent the same general thing, which is how evil works in the human race, and how it exists in all of us, but that doesn’t mean that we have to let it control us.